I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (I Like Big Dragons 1)

Who shot her? I asked him.

Purists. White van. They took off the moment she went down, Declan growled.

“It was as if the ball somehow cut off her link to the Meridian. When that link was severed, she instantly came out of her hover as if all of her powers were gone. She’s lucky she didn’t have a far fall and that she was here instead of somewhere we wouldn’t have gotten to her quickly enough,” Nikolai breathed, studying the ball.

I looked down, studying the ball myself.

“Declan says they shot her from a white van,” I told Nikolai.

“Perdita says the same.” Nikolai nodded his head.

Perdita was Nikolai’s dragon, and she was a beautiful white beast of a dragon who was only slightly smaller than Declan.

She practically made Story look like a dwarf.

She also had an attitude from hell.

“She followed the van,” I guessed.

Nikolai sighed. “Yep.”

“Where’d the van go?” I persisted.

“Parking garage on Texas Street,” Nikolai held the ball up.

Then my eyes widened, and I yanked the ball from Nikolai’s hands.

Hauling my arm back, I threw the ball as far as I could across the street.

So hard that my arm was sore and aching.

Luckily, there was a large abandoned building across the street from us, because had it been occupied, there would have been all kinds of casualties seeing as the motherfucking ball blew up.

Boom!

The building exploded. The blowback from the explosion forced all of us that were standing at the entrance of our building to be blown backwards. We were thrown through the air about ten feet back into the building beyond us.

My head smacked into the hard metal building, and my body screamed on impact.

I was alive, though.

“Should’ve probably seen that coming,” Nikolai groaned as he gained his feet further down from me.

I winced, climbing to my feet and surveying the damage.

Dragons did much the same around us, coming to their feet from where they’d gone down.

“So it has a timer,” I surmised.

The building was trashed.

Nothing viable remained.

Bricks were scattered about fifty to a hundred feet in a large arc surrounding the building.

“Boss,” Jose called from behind me.

I blinked, turning my face to Jose.

“Yeah?” I asked.

He pointed to a spot on the ground, and I looked down to see my phone on the stained concrete at my feet, buzzing.

I swooped down, picking it up from ground, and grimacing when I got a look at the cracked screen.

“I keep telling you not to leave it in your front pocket,” Nikolai chastised.

I flipped him off and opened the phone by sliding my thumb against the bottom of the screen, happy to see that it at least still worked mostly.

I winced when I saw that there’d been at least seven missed calls from Blythe.

Remembering what she’d said when I’d gotten hurt by the dragon’s claw ripping into my arm earlier in the week, I hit Go as I called her back.

“Why do you keep getting hurt?” She yelled worriedly.

I smiled. “I’m okay.”

“You’ve hurt your head and your back. And I stabbed a patient with a tongue depressor,” Blythe yelled.

I snorted. “I’m sure your patient will live.”

She hissed, “What happened?”

I closed my eyes, broke down, and told her.

I knew she’d be worried.

Hell, I was worried.

If I wanted the same courtesy extended to me, then I’d have to do the same for her when I needed to.

And right now was one of those times.

So I explained the last fifteen minutes.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “That could’ve been very, very bad.”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.

“That it could have,” I agreed solemnly.

“Is Story okay?” She worried.

I looked over to Story and Declan, relieved to see that they were both okay, albeit a little shaken up.

She’s fine, Declan promised.

I assumed he projected that to the both of us, because in the next moment, Blythe said a very relieved, “Good!”

“Alright, baby. I’ve got to go. We have some things we need to figure out, but I’ll still be there to pick you up after your shift, okay?” I promised.

“Yeah, honey. That’s fine. I’ll see you in a few,” she whispered.

We both stayed silent, waiting for words that neither one of us had said, but both of us felt.

It went on so long that I finally said, “Bye, baby.”

I’d say it eventually, though. I just needed to hear it from her, first.

“What do you want us to do?” Nikolai asked impatiently the moment I disconnected.

I looked at the men surrounding me. At Declan, who was still next to Story.

Murder rippling over the scales of his back and sparking in his eyes.

Nikolai and Perdita watching me with anticipation.

“We go hunting,” I answered threateningly. “Nikolai, go to the parking garage, see what you can find. Jose, you and Sin go to the sanctuary with Story. Watch over her and let us know the minute you get home. Declan, you’re with me.”